GRAND RAPIDS, MI – A new city budget proposal earmarks $250,000 of 2010 income tax money for undesignated “crime prevention strategies” and “community crime prevention initiatives.” The job to flesh out those concepts will fall to Third Ward City Commissioner Senita Lenear and a group she’s leading to address crime in Grand Rapids neighborhoods.

Mayor George Heartwell has appointed Lenear to head a new Safe Neighborhoods Task Force.

“The charge to this task force is to convene the neighborhoods and institutional leadership around a response to violence in our neighborhoods, looking at issues such as gangs and guns and developing a coordinated crime prevention strategy that better aligns the community resources with law enforcement efforts in order to make our neighborhoods even safer places to live,” Heartwell said.

In summary, the task force will take a look at models elsewhere in the country and brainstorm how Grand Rapids Police can collaborate better with neighborhood associations and other organizations like churches and schools.

Lenear said she’s in the process of forming the task force, which could report back to the City Commission this fall. Heartwell also assigned Lynn Heemstra, executive director of Our Community's Children, and Police Sgt. Geoff Collard to the group.

Any task force recommendations could be incorporated into the 2015-2016 fiscal-year budget, City Manager Greg Sundstrom said. The city’s 2014-2015 Transformation Fund budget – which is where Grand Rapids accounts both for revenue from the 2010 income tax increase and for certain state money – has $250,000 reserved for the group’s work.

The proposed Transformation Fund budget also earmarks $501,253 for 10 new police officers. Grand Rapids got a federal grant to pay half the cost of 10 officers for three years, so long as the city comes up with the other half for three years and then pays the full cost in the fourth year.

The city’s plan is to spend about $500,000 in Transformation Fund money on the cops each of the next three years, then spend about $1 million on the officers in the 2017-2018 fiscal year.

Police Chief Kevin Belk has said the 10 new officers will be part of a crime-prevention unit deployed to certain parts of the city at certain times of the day, based on when and where crime typically happens.

Heartwell this month also announced a separate task force charged with planning a summit of neighborhood leaders on topics including economic vitality, housing stock and neighborhood association funding. Heartwell assigned Second Ward City Commissioner Rosalynn Bliss to head that group.

Bliss said the summit could become an annual meeting.

“The larger question is how do we sustain strong neighborhoods with the challenges neighborhoods face?” Heartwell said. “We need to think creatively on this subject. I think new ideas will bubble up.”